Research context

When it comes to the organization of sports and physical activity in Finland, at the core of that are volunteer-based organizations. It is stated in the law of physical education that the main responsibility to produce organized sports is on local sports clubs. Municipalities are responsible for providing facilities and sports clubs produce the actual training (Koski & Heikkala, 1998).

In Finland, the sports sector as a whole consists of private, public and third sector organizations. The role of civic sports organizations is significant and the most com-mon sports organization is a sport club (Itkonen & Salmikangas, 2015). There are 75 sports federations and around 6000-8000 sports clubs in Finland. Approximately 40-50% of Finnish children and adolescents participate in sports organized by sports clubs (Itkonen & Samikangas, 2015; Fasandoz, 2016). Other nonprofit sports organizations include regional sports organizations (e.g. Keski-Suomen Liikunta ry), specific cliental organizations (e.g. Finnish Student Sports Federation) and parent organizations (e.g. The Finnish Olympic Committee) (Valo, 2017).

The Finnish Olympic Committee is the parent organization for all sports federations and starting from January 2017 it is the only parent organization for sports and phys-ical education in Finland (The Finnish Olympic Committee, 2017a). Its’ mission is to get all Finns to move more, help local organizations in their work of moving citizens, and also produce quality athletes and world-class sports in Finland (The Finnish Olympic Committee, 2017b). National federations are members of the national Olympic Committee and sports clubs then again members of federations. This the-sis focuses on sports clubs and federations, so next these two organization types are explained further.

1.2.1. National sports federations

A sports federation (sometimes called an association) consists of independent member organizations and acts as a cohesion ground for them (Heikkala, 2005, 40).

In the sports sector, national and international sports federations are responsible for

the operation, development, rules and regulations of their sport (Suomen urheilun eettinen keskus SUEK ry, 2017). The first comprehensive study of sports federa-tions in Finland was conducted by Koski and Heikkala in 1998. Their study was the first to really look at sports federations in much detail, both their organizational struc-ture and their environment. The oldest sports federations in Finland are over a hun-dred years old and the youngest have been founded in the last few years. As new sports develop or old federations split into two, the number of sports federations rises all the time. Because of this, sports federations cannot be classified to all be alike. Instead, they differ based on their size, age and position on the organizational life-cycle (Koski & Heikkala, 1998, 20).

Sports organizations can be classified based on their bureaucracy or position on the organization life-cycle model. The model has four phases that are enthusiasm, col-lectivity, formalization, and regeneration or decline. The model describes the aver-age trajectory of a volunteer organization based on their driving forces, resources and level of bureaucracy (Koski & Heikkala, 1998, 20). Kikulis et al. (1992) have created a life-cycle model specific to sports federations (or similar sports governing organizations). Based on a wide literature review of Canadian sports organizations, three different institutionally specific archetypes for NSOs were identified. These are the Kitchen Table, the Boardroom and the Executive Office. Each holds different organizational values and structure, and the archetypes are useful in deciding the strategy process of the organization (Kikulis et al., 1992). A conclusive table of the archetypes is found in appendix 1.

In short, the Kitchen Table organization is a private, volunteer organization focusing on members with few rules and little planning and decision-making done by few key volunteers. Most new federations and smaller sports clubs can be defined as this archetype (Hinings & Slack, 1987). A Boardroom organization is more organized than the Kitchen Table with formal roles within the organization, rules, and central-ized decision-making (by the board of the organization). The main difference to the Kitchen Table is that funding comes from public agencies in addition to member fees and fundraising. An Executive Office organization’s focus is shifted from private to public, which means the organization must answer broader, public demands,

such as winning Olympic medals or creating professional, high performance sports.

Professionals lead the organizational planning processes and the role of volunteers is to solely implement plans and strategies on national and regional level (Kikulis et al. 1992). To summarize, Kitchen Table organizations are volunteer based and less formal. The focus shifts from volunteerism to include some professionals, formality and centralized decision-making in Boardroom organizations, and ends in Executive Office organizations where volunteerism is only a supporting function to profession-alism.

In general, in Finland bigger sports federations operate as Executive Offices, smaller federations and bigger sports clubs as Boardroom and smaller sports clubs and new federations as Kitchen Table. The archetypes have been studied by Koski (1994) in Finland, and his findings support the Canadian studies. These archetypes present the organizational structure of federations quite accurately and can be used to describe federations in Finland as well. The structure of sports organizations has been studied widely by other researchers, especially in Canada (e.g. Chelladurai &

Haggerty, 1991; Thibault et al., 1991; Danylchuk & Chelladurai, 1999; Cunningham

& Rivera, 2001), but also in the UK (e.g. Theodoraki & Henry, 1994) and Australia (e.g. Smith, 2004).

Depending on the author, sports organizations can be referred to as sport governing bodies, sport providing entities, sport event organizations, international sports fed-erations, and national or international Olympic Committees (Gomez et al., 2008).

Especially organization theory researchers have studied sport governing bodies, such as national federations, within the concept of organizational change (e.g. Slack

& Hinings, 1987, 1992, 1994; Kikulis, 2000; Kikulis & Slack, 1995; Mason & Slack, 2001; Thibault & Babiak, 2005). The effectiveness of sports organizations, such as goal setting and performance to reach those goals, has been widely researched (e.g. Frisby, 1986; Cairns, 1987; Thibault et al., 1999; Hoye & Cuskelly, 2003; De Knop et al., 2004).

In Finland, limited studies have been done on sports federations. Some of the es-sential research include the overview study of sports organizations (Koski & Heik-kala, 1998), sociology of sports (Koski, 2015), development of national sports poli-cies (Koski & Lämsä, 2015) and development of the entire voluntary sports sector (Itkonen et al., 2000). More studies focus on the activity level of citizens and only lightly touch on sports organizations as the providers of physical activity (e.g. Heik-kala et al., 2014; Oja et al., 2014; Hamari et al., 2017).

1.2.2. Sports clubs

In Finland, sports clubs are often classified by the number of sports they offer. A club focusing on one or two sports is called a differentiated sports club and a club focusing on multiple sports is called a multi-sports club (Heinilä & Koski, 1991, 15).

Since the 1980’s the number of differentiated sport clubs has risen largely and the average size of the clubs has simultaneously become smaller. Nowadays there are approximately 6000-8000 sports clubs in Finland (Itkonen & Salmikangas, 2015).

Heinilä & Koski. (1991, 16) have created a framework that classifies sports clubs into four categories based on their engagement in performance and competition (from high to low) and their level of specification in one sport or multiple sports.

Itkonen & Salmikangas (2015) continue on that idea and present a model that di-vides sports clubs into two categories based on their orientation: sport- and perfor-mance oriented or socio-culturally oriented clubs. These can then again be divided into smaller groups, based on such as their level of professionalism (such as pro-fessional hockey clubs), level of competition or hobby orientation, region etc. The main difference between the two groups is the purpose of sports: it’s either perfor-mance and competition or leisure and sociocultural factors (Itkonen & Salmikangas, 2015). Most sports clubs in Finland do not value performance and competition ori-entation over leisure and sociocultural factors even if they also offer competitive sports (Koski, 2009, 39-41).

Just as the number of federations has risen over the years due to the development of new sports and the splitting of multiple-sport federations into single-sport federa-tions, also the number of sports clubs has risen due to the same reasons. More than 70% of sports clubs in Finland are nowadays focused on one sport and the number of multi-sports clubs has dropped significantly from the 20^th century (Koski, 2009, 43). Most sports clubs are rather small, with less than 100 members. The size of sports clubs has declined over time as members have left bigger, multi-sports clubs and joined smaller, differentiated sports clubs (Koski, 2009, 51-52).

Sports clubs play an important and central role in producing physical education in other European countries as well (Wolff von Amerongen, 1999, 7-8). Even though there are differences between sports clubs and their role in society inside of Europe, for the most parts sports clubs play an important role in society and historically, have been in a central role in creating recreational activities in Europe. The number and importance of voluntary sports clubs in Europe is a lot larger than for example in North America, where schools are the primary producer of especially children’s and adolescents’ physical activity. Also, the number of private businesses is higher in North America than in Europe, even though the professionalization of sports clubs is an emerging trend all over (Slack, 1999, 317-326).

In academic discussion, national sports organizations and governing sports bodies have been significantly more popular subject of research than sports clubs. Some research includes both federations and voluntary sports clubs (e.g. Hoye &

Cuskelly, 2003; De Knop et al., 2004, Thibault & Babiak, 2005). Especially in the mecca of NSO research, Canada, very limited research has been done on sports clubs (e.g. Kikulis et al., 1989; Slack & Kikulis, 1989; Amis & Slack, 1996). Around the world, voluntary sports clubs have been studied for example in terms of com-mercialization (Westby & Sack, 1976), professionalization (Ørnulf, 2002; Ørnulf 2004) and organizational structure (e.g. Papadimitriou, 2002; Hoye & Cuskelly, 2003; Fahlén, 2006). These studies present some of the concurring themes sports organizations face in their daily activities. For organizations to be able to respond to these changes, the importance of strategic planning needs to be emphasized (Heik-kala, 2005, 49).

In Finland, there has been research on the organizational structure of a sports club (e.g. Heinilä & Koski, 1991; Koski, 2009), sports club as a social organization (Heinilä, 1986) and sports clubs as a part of society (Koski, 2010; Koski, 2012).

More research focuses on the participation in sports club activities (e.g. Kokko et al., 2009; Kokko et al., 2015; Paakkari et al., 2017) than the actual sports club as an organization, just as in the case of federations.